Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Did Not Finish

Happy Tuesday everybody! Also – yay! – double post!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Books I Did Not Finish. Like last week’s prompt, I feel it’s rather self-explanatory. Of course, I’ve chosen to DNF several books in my life – more than ten, definitely – so I’m going to pick the ten most recent ones.

Here we go!

  1. Witchmark by C.L. Polk: This one… I dunno, I was intrigued by the premise, but I think I was just so distracted and stressed by my job at the time that I couldn’t get into it (I’m pretty sure it was the holiday season). I remember distinctly not being in the mood for reading at the time as well. (Attempted to Read: 2020)
  2. The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins: So yeah, I know everyone loved this book, but I just couldn’t get into it. To be fair, I couldn’t get into Jane Eyre either and I know they have their differences, but… I dunno, I guess it’s not really my genre or whatever? (Attempted to Read: 2021)
  3. Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima: This one hurt. This was one of my anticipated reads of November 2022, and it just wasn’t doing it for me. I’m not even really sure what it was about it in particular; honestly, I think it was several different things. (Attempted to Read: 2022)
  4. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: I wanted to like this one. Actually, I wanted to love it. But it was waayyy too slow for me. I think I made it to around 16% before I threw in the towel. I was bored. (Attempted to Read: 2022)
  5. The House Witch by Delemhach: I loved the premise for this one too… but the writing killed it got me. Like I loved the world and the characters, but this book needed an editor. It has a lot of potential though… (Attempted to Read: 2022)
  6. Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker: Yet another one of the books on my anticipated reads list – this one for July 2023. I couldn’t even make it past the first couple chapters. This one just didn’t grab me at all. (Attempted to Read: 2023)
  7. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson: I’d been wanting to get into The Stormlight Archive for a while, though I was extremely apprehensive about it because all the books are over a thousand pages long each. Annnd… I couldn’t get into it. I gave this book over two hundred pages, as well. I think I got so burned out from it, actually, that it put me in a reading slump. So yeah, it wasn’t for me. (Attempted to Read: 2023)
  8. Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu: And a third representative from the anticipated reads list appears – this novel from the March 2023 list. I just… I dunno, I think I got a third of the way through this before the characters just irritated me too much. I’ve also found that as I get older, I can’t stand how Marie Lu writes hyper-intelligent characters. (Attempted to Read: 2024)
  9. Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro: I dunno, I just couldn’t get into this one. I didn’t grab me at all, really. And I gave it over a hundred pages. I just don’t think it was for me, unfortunately. Dunno what it was about it, though. (Attempted to Read: 2024)
  10. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle: This one… I might actually go back to, eventually. Even though it was slower, I enjoyed a lot of what was going on here. But I made the unfortunate decision to start reading this a few days before Christmas, a holiday that – as much as I love it – always distracts and/or stresses me out. So maybe I’ll give this one another shot someday. For now, however, it will remain unfinished. (Attempted to Read: 2024)

What books have you DNF-ed recently? What are DNF-ed novels that bother you the most? Why do you typically DNF books?

As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Weekly Wrap-Up: 12/16 – 12/22

Hey look it’s the elusive Weekly Wrap-Up – on a Tuesday this time. Yeah, Christmas time is the time of inconsistent posts for me. I might actually skip the weekly wrap-up for next week just because of all the stuff going on during the holidays.

Anyway, last week was once again a bit of a disappointment. I would’ve liked to do at least one more post, and I’m definitely mad at myself for not really reading any books. Or finishing one, at the very least.

But yeah, let’s wrap up last week…

Wednesday 12/18: Can’t-Wait Wednesday

Last Wednesday, I did another Can’t-Wait Wednesday. It had been a couple of weeks since I last participated, but another upcoming release I’m a little interested in.

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.

Friday 12/20: First Line Friday

On Friday, I participated in First Line Fridays for the first time in several weeks. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.

Sunday 12/22: Winterspell Review

Yesterday, I did another Retrospective Book Review, for the first time in like over a year. It was over a book I’ve really liked ever since I read it years ago – Winterspell by Claire Legrand. It’s a retelling of The Nutcracker, one of my favorite Christmas stories.

When I originally read it, I gave it ★★★★✯. Now, after going through this book again a few days ago, I still give it the same rating – ★★★★✯. I still like it now just as much as when I first read it.

Books I Read Last Week

💖🎁 Wrapping It All Up 💖🎁

So yeah, last week I didn’t read books or post on the blog as often as I’d have liked, and this week is not gonna be any better. ‘Cause of the holiday and all. Not to mention, my spouse is off the next week or so as well, so I both want to spend time with them, as well as a break from everything myself. Which is why I might skip this post altogether next week.

This week I’m gonna be doing Christmas stuff – baking cookies, listening to Christmas music and spending time with family. I’m still hoping to get some reading of some sort done, though. Maybe a couple of blog posts as well. We’ll see.

The books I’m thinking about reading coming up are: the Winterspell companion novellas and The Lies of Locke Lamora. I’m also currently reading I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, so hopefully I’ll finish that soon.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve 🎅🦌🌟🕯️🥛🍪 everybody, and here’s also an early Merry Christmas 🎄🎁🔔❄️🎶🛷 to everyone as well!

As always, thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar

First Line Friday: 12/20

Week three babyyyy! (It’s a turkey! 🦃✨) Happy Friday all!

Anyway, First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.

What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?

If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:

📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page
📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
📙 Finally… reveal the book!

Here’s the first line:

The warning came in the form of a great wind, sudden and cold, sweeping out of the western mountains on a perfectly bland and cloudless summer day.

Any ideas on the book? If you don’t, here’s another hint or two for ya…

Still don’t know it? Here’s a few photos of some lovely books, while you consider…

Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle!!

(Didja guess it?)

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

LENGTH: 278 pages

GENRES: Fantasy, Fiction

PUBLISHER: Sword & Saga Press

RELEASE DATE: 14 May 2024

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Unicorn comes a new novel with equal amounts of power and whimsy in which a loveable cast of characters trapped within their roles of dragon hunter, princess, and more must come together to take their fates into their own hands.

Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouse-like vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart in part because he likes dragons, feeling a kinship with them, but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a princess valet. Needless to say, fate has something rather different in mind… 

What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?

As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar